Bella is laying in her room and staring at the ceiling. A few hours ago, she awoke from a dream about Spike. In the dream, Spike was dancing with a dark-haired woman. Spike and the woman were grinding together. They were in a crypt, and they were laughing. Then suddenly Spike sees Bella and the dream shifts. They are in a ballroom together, the kind that are sometimes in hotels. Spike puts his hands on Bella's shoulder.

"Are you happy?" Spike asked in the dream.

Bella looks Spike in the eye and starts to laugh hysterically.

"Happy? I don't know," Bella said to Spike.

"I'll be watching you," Spike said.

Then the ballroom and Spike vanished and became a pit of darkness and Bella was falling down it. The darkness swallowed her, and though she no longer had to breathe, she woke up almost with a gasp. She was shocked. She was in love with Edward. She didn't want this Spike vampire to screw with that.

He turned you, though. Bella said to herself. Edward wasn't going to. He left you.

Bella shook her head.

He came back though.

He did. That's true.

It's daytime and Bella decides to go upstairs to find Edward. It is a Saturday, so he isn't at school. Bella wants to go tell her father that she is okay. Carlisle had called him and told him that she was staying with them for now. He had lied and told Charlie that Bella came down with a strange sickness and that she wasn't ready to go and talk to him.

Bella wasn't afraid of burning in the sun. She wasn't afraid of dying; she had faced death many times since meeting the Cullens. What she wanted to do was see how long she could stand in the sun before bursting into flames, and if she could gradually make that amount of time increase. Let's call it a science experiment, Bella mused.

"I don't think you should do that," Edward cautioned, reading Bella's mind.

"You can't stop me. I have to try," Bella said. "I don't need you to protect me anymore. I'm going outside."

"Fine," Edward said. "Let's start with just the window open. 5 minutes. Then I'll whisk you away into darkness."

That reminded Bella of her dream. She didn't want anything to do with darkness. That was why she wanted to see if she could adjust, make the sun a less painful thing. In her first month as a vampire, she almost burst into flames a few times and it was not fun. So maybe she was a little afraid.

Bella and Edward sit in the sofa in Edward's room.

"Okay, I'm going to open the window? Are you ready?" Edward asked.

Bella braced herself and winced.

"Yes," Bella said, biting her lip and looking at Edward.

Then Edward opened the window and the sun streamed in.

The first thing Bella felt was a burning sensation all over her skin, and her eyes hurt. Her eyes ached and throbbed. She could smell smoke, she was sizzling but there weren't flames yet.

"What are you feeling?" Edward asked.

"Um, pain," Bella said.

The flames started licking. It was unbearable. Bella started to regret the experiment. She started shaking and convulsing.

"Close it! Close it! Edward, close it!" Bella said, almost screamed.

"That was barely three minutes," Edward said.

"I know. I know. It's a start. Close it, it hurts, close it!" Bella said.

Edward ran to the window and closed it and covered it completely with the blinds. Then he ran over to Bella and held her.

"It will be okay, Bell. I promise," Edward said.

"That hurt so much," Bella said.

"I know," Edward said. "Let me look at you. See if there is any permanent damage."

"I'll heal," Bella said.

"I know," Edward said.

He reached for an ointment that Carlisle had brought home from the hosptal.

"Let me take care of you," Edward said.

Bella took off her shirt, which had some holes in it from the flames that the sun had triggered. Her torso was red with angry welts. She looked down at it and shivered because ironically, she was so cold. Her heart no longer beat, and she was cold and in pain. But even now she had no regrets.

Edward put the ointment on Bella's burns. The ointment felt cool and was a relief.

"Come on. Lay down," Eddward said.

Bella and Edward laid down and Edward was the big spoon and he held her.

"I bet next time I'll be able to make it to five minutes. And then I can try going outside. You can bring a bucket of water to put out the flames," Bella said.

"It's too dangerous," Edward said.

They were both very still. They were both vampires. Edward couldn't sleep; Bella could sleep but didn't have to.

"I'm going to drift off to sleep, okay?" Bella said.

Edward nodded.

Bella drifted off to sleep. Strange dreams came.

While she slept Edward held her. She had not put her shirt back on. Edward noticed both how thin she was and how the burns were already healing. They were already slightly better. He then knew that she would be okay. They had forever, after all.

To be continued...